MIT Invents Shapeshifting Display Using Atoms Instead Of Pixels

Storm WilliamsNov 13, 2013

The folks at the MIT Media Lab, has unveiled the future of computing in the form of inFORM.

According to a report from Fast Company, “inForm is a surface that three-dimensionally changes shape, allowing users to not only interact with digital content in meatspace, but even hold hands with a person hundreds of miles away. And that’s only the beginning.”

inForm is created by Daniel Leithinger and Sean Follmer and overseen by Professor Hiroshi Ishii, and is basically a Pinscreen, which allows users to create a rough 3-D model of an object by pressing it into a bed of flattened pins.

“The “pins” is connected to a motor controlled by a nearby laptop, which can not only move the pins to render digital content physically, but can also register real-life objects interacting with its surface thanks to the sensors of a hacked Microsoft Kinect. To put it in the simplest terms, the inFORM is a self-aware computer monitor that doesn’t just display light, but shape as well,” the report said.

“Right now, the things designers can create with graphics are more powerful and flexible than in hardware,” Leithinger tells Co.Design. “The result is our gadgets have been consumed by the screen and become indistinguishable black rectangles with barely any physical controls. That’s why BlackBerry is dying.”